Alex Huntley always wanted to write a book about Canada's history, but it wasn't the one he thought he might write.

"I never imagined it to be satirical," admitted the Kingston resident.

"At times, I thought, 'Wow, maybe I can write a real history book. No, not good enough for that, I'll write the satirical one.' "

Huntley and fellow Queen's University alum Luke Gordon Field are the authors of The Beaverton's Glorious and/Or Free: The History of Canada, the popular satirical news website's foray in publishing. Huntley will be at Novel Idea, at the corner of Princess and Bagot streets, this evening at 7 to read selections from the book and discuss it.

The book takes a chronological look at Canadian history through a collection of fake newspaper articles peppered with humorous pictures and graphics.

"It's a bit of a -- I hate to say it -- a bit of a toilet book. It's easy to read; I think it's a particular level where you don't have to have a tremendous level of knowledge about Canadian history to get most of the jokes," said Huntley, whose undergrad degree is in history and politics. "There are a few inside winks to the real history buffs who know the event."

And while the book is being released during the year of Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation, that wasn't the impetus, the editor and senior writer for The Beaverton assured.

"We didn't want to do a Canada 150 book because we acknowledge that the history of this country perhaps began 30,000 years ago," the 31-year-old explained, "and maybe even earlier than that."

Canadians, he feels, don't "critically understand" their country's history. Many, he said, only know what is contained in those Canadian Heritage commercials.

"Basically, that's it," offered Huntley, who settled in Kingston because his wife works here. "And some of the heritage minutes we don't even get the right message. The 'burnt toast' one. That's one of the most famous lines. Can anyone remember the doctor that actually did the surgery? No. Dr. (Wilder) Penfield. I had to look that up, though."

Huntley and Field -- who went on to law school and now performs as a stand-up comedian -- first floated the idea of writing a book back in 2013. The late Laurent Noonan, The Beaverton's founder, endorsed the idea. So the pair and their contributors set to work, putting in hours upon hours of research. And then they had to whittle what would go in the book and what wouldn't.

"We really struggled with some of the events to satirize, especially the more tragic ones, to make sure that we were getting the right tone to it and making sure we weren't punching down," he said.

Huntley -- who ran to represent Sydenham District in the 2006 Kingston municipal election, finishing last -- also did his post-grad public administration degree at Queen's. Upon completing it, he applied to the federal government. While he would eventually get the first job for which he applied, it took a year and a half before he actually started.

"I think that time when I was unemployed made me a bit of a bitter person and more opinionated," he said, chuckling.

There was nothing in Canada, satire-wise, that appealed to him, he said.

"With (This Hour has) 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer (Report), it's like, 'We're all friends at the end of the day. It's just this gentle ribbing,' whereas in the United States there's The Onion, there's the Daily Show, where they're opinionated and not going to apologize for it," said Huntley.

When he started writing for The Beaverton, Huntley did so under a nom de plume since he still had his government job.The article that first got him noticed was about the cellphone roaming fees Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield incurred during his stay on the International Space Station. He was dumbfounded that so many people believed it to be true.

"It went so viral it crashed our little tiny website," he said. He would later follow that up with a story about Hadfield being kicked out of a movie theatre for heckling the movie Gravity, pointing out its inconsistencies.

Those weren't the only stories he wrote that went viral. While living and working in Montreal, he wrote about a parrot who was being expelled from a 'biodome' because it was unilingual.

And then there was kerfuffle in Parliament in May 2016 known as "Elbowgate," which led to Huntley's "second greatest day of my life." He joked that the NDP caucus arrived the next day sporting neck braces and in wheelchairs. The next day, an editorial in the Hamilton Spectator treated Huntley's story as fact by saying the same.

"There's your first problem: a lack of editorial oversight into opinions being brought upon by a medium-sized newspaper," he said of what was the "second happiest day of my life."

That's the thing about satire, he said; The Beaverton isn't trying to put one over on the public, they're just trying to make a point, and one of those points is to question the news you read and hear.

The Beaverton has now expanded into television, airing a fake news broadcast on the Comedy Network.

"When we started this project, I don't think any of us thought we would make any money or have a TV show," said Huntley, who finally quit his government job in August of last year.

Glorious and/or Free was Huntley's pet project, and he hopes to write another book someday.

"Maybe," he hinted, "I'm planning a second book that will look at Canadian politics."

phendra@postmedia.com

twitter.com/petehendra

Essentials

What: Co-author Alex Huntley will read and discuss The Beaverton's Glorious and/or Free: The History of Canada.